At a crossroads of destiny
by bhut
Summary: Helen Cutter feels regret; Ethan Dombrowski decides to leave just after one more corpse; April has at least one more trick in store regarding Abby - it's business as usual at the ARC...
1. Chapter 1

**Prologue I – February 23, 2008**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

The cemetery stood abandoned and dark, with the cold wind blowing through the skeletal branches of leafless trees and a moon shining like a cold yellow eye of an emotionless monster through black-and-silvered clouds.

A woman slowly moved through the trees with a stalking grace that implied many years of practice of moving silently: not even a slight limp of one of her feet belied it.

Slowly, the woman made her way to one of the gravestones in the cemetery and said:

"Hello, Stephen. It is I, Helen. I know that you cannot hear me, or perhaps just do not want to acknowledge me, but... this is the anniversary of your death, after all, and I have to tell you that... I am sorry. I should have stuck with the initial plan; I should not have tried to have Nick sacrifice himself, but... I could not help myself! For years and years Nick and I tried to make our marriage work: for three years I passionately loved him, for two more I respected him, and then, well, I met you. And I fell for you hard, and I panicked, and I fled – through a time anomaly, as I later realized.

"That experience was terrible, but I survived, and I was sure that if I could survive that, I could do anything – but I was wrong. I could kill you, for example, but I could not change your heart. You loved Nick, no matter what, forever and ever, and for him... you died. I failed. Then Nick died, for I succeeded...and now, it is my turn. I cannot – quite – change the past, but I can see the future. You are dead; Nick is dead; Jenny is gone; and now, it is my turn. My death is coming at last. I will put on a good show, but in the end, I will die. I know not if there is an afterlife or not, but I doubt that I will ever see you again. Good-bye, Stephen, and good luck..."

Slowly, the woman turned around and vanished back into the twilight among the trees. More shadows followed her – clone troopers of her army. Within moments they were gone through a manifested time anomaly, as if they were never there, and the cemetery was empty once more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Prologue II – February 5, 2011**

_Disclaimer: except for Alexandra, none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

Ethan raced through the streets, his mind awhirl. He was a fool for thinking that he could stay here – here, in a time and place of so many memories, good and bad – but most importantly, they were memories...

_What__have__I__lost,_ he silently mused, as unbidden memories of his family – father, mother, big brother Danny – raced through his mind. _What__have__I__lost__in__gaining__the__power__to__kill__anything__I__want,__given__enough__time?__I__almost__know__not__anymore,__but__I__still__remember!__God,__but__I__wish__that__that__would__stop!_

As Ethan ran, he was so busy thinking, that he did not watch where he was running.

Smack!

Dazed, Ethan staggered back and looked at the ad at the bus stop that he had run into. "Lee's Hardware Store, opened this week? Hmm. Lee..."

As Ethan looked at the ad, memories of his past continued to swirl in his head, this time bringing to mind a taller, stronger, blond boy that constantly harassed him in shop and music class, especially whenever Ethan's older brother was not around.

"Lee," Ethan said slowly, as he remembered. "Lee..." His facial expression shifted, transforming from a face of a man who was lost back into a face of a man who was one a mission – a seriously nasty one. "Lee. Well. I may not belong here, but gosh and damn, I still can have some fun while I'm here!"

With a nasty smirk that did not quite reach his hollow eyes, Ethan abruptly shifted his position and went off in a new direction, full of his old, deadly purpose.

\\\

"Excuse me, Mr. Lee?"

"Yes?" the blonde asked as he turned around and found himself confronting a shorter and darker man than himself, but approximately of the same age as he. "What are you doing here? We are not open yet! For that matter – how did you get into here? The store's closed!"

"Oh, Lee," the other man shook his head, "you always were so fast in your head – surely you can remember me, the little Patrick?"

"Patrick?" the man blinked, as indignation gave way to confusion and fear, "what are you talking about? I don't know any Patrick!"

"No?" the other man grinned nastily, as he picked up several of hardware store's merchandise from the shelves behind him. "Then let me remind you in a great detail!"

\\\

"Well! That was fun!" Ethan exclaimed about two hours later, after he finished doing what he did best: killing people with great prejudice, blood and pain: Lee's consciousness was gone even before his life was over.

"Aye! I quite agree!"

Slowly, Ethan turned around, worried as to how a stranger could have sneaked up on him without him noticing and realized that she was standing in front of a manifested time anomaly.

"Hmm." Appraisingly, Ethan looked at his interlocutrix, from the tips of her toes to her blue-tinged hair and the horn, jutting from her forehead. "Interesting. I believe I saw you – or someone like you in that land, where dinosaurs attacked from trees. Are you from that time?"

"Yes," the woman nodded cheerfully. "Alexandra Anderson at your service, though I'm hoping that the service will be yours."

"Excuse me?" Ethan said, curious despite his best intentions.

"Oh, you know, do you care to join my force and all? There are times to travel, people to kill and all that other tripe that you read about in advertisement papers..."

"Don't diss the advertisements," Ethan spoke-up in a mock-stern voice. "That's how I found my fellow Lee here, after all."

"Mmm, and a nice job you did on him," Alexandra nodded solemnly, clearly impressed. "If you were to work with me and my people, you will have many more opportunities to do something like that."

Ethan did not hesitate one bit. After all, killing people was what made him feel better, or at least good.

"All right, lady, you got yourself a deal!" he said, rubbing his hands with near delight as he approached Alexandra and her time anomaly. "Where shall we go first?"

_End of Prologue_


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 1 – June 28, 2011**

_Disclaimer: except for Kurangaituku, none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

_Note: contains spoilers for the official series._

The "New Dawn" project was coming apart. Its first and only child, the second artificially generated time anomaly, was tearing it apart, as steel and concrete, electric circuitry and glass seemed to be literally disintegrating, as time anomaly just grew and grew, gathering width and mass.

And among all this chaos flew a flock of small, but flesh-eating pterosaurs, their jaws snapped with razor-sharp teeth, and they were flying towards _them_.

"It's ironic, I know it, but I have been dreaming about this for a long time," April was telling the shorter blonde as she prepared to shoot Abby where the latter was standing. "It's nothing personal, it's business-"

And then the swarm of the tiny flying reptiles struck, almost literally, carrying April with them over the breaking-down staircase with the force of their collision.

Abby exhaled in relief, but it was clearly premature: a surprisingly, large and strong hand grasped her ankle and took her down with April.

The two blondes whirled through the air, and Abby, though dizzy, could see that something was off about April, her facial expression appeared too inhuman and her teeth too sharp to be normal, but-

But then April slammed something into her, growled something ineligible in low, inhuman tone, and flung Abby away towards the artificial time anomaly with a far greater display of strength and acrobatics that Abby had intended from her.

And then, there was just darkness.

\\\

"Well! This is something that I didn't foresee!" were the first words that Abby heard as the darkness began to recede, and the voice that spoke was extremely unwelcome.

"Helen!" Abby opened her eyes and winced as the light from the lamps above all but blinded her for a few moments. "You're dead! Danny had sworn that that was so!"

"Ah," the teeth that Helen revealed in her smile were human, but that was the _only_ good thing about them. "I was. By all things proper, I still should be, but," Helen's voice turned sickeningly sweet, "some young people were messing with technology that they didn't fully understand, and milliards worth years, from the Big Bang until the universe's end, were shaken up, the closer to the 20th century, the more so. In particular, one crucial moment of time was erased: the time of my death."

"Impossible!" Abby spat. "Time cannot be erased!"

"Neither can it be rewound or put on a fast forward setting, but the time anomalies do exactly that!" Helen replied calmly. "What has your boyfriend been teaching you about the mechanics of time, young lady?"

Abby saw red. "Connor hasn't been teaching me anything, old woman!" she growled as she grabbed Helen by the collar. "He's been too busy with his new friends in Prospero™ and "New Dawn" – your friends!"

"My friends?" Helen asked quietly not making any effort to remove Abby's hands from her collar.

"Yes, yours!" Abby growled, "Connor saw your video in Philip's archives, you were telling him-"

"And did any of you ever think that anyone with a passing knowledge of programming could've cooked something like that in CGI using my old photos?" Helen continued to ask.

Abby blinked, releasing Helen and taking a step back. "Well... I'll have to talk to Connor..." and then she walked into something, or rather into someone, because they were relatively warm, and breathing, even if also hard and unyielding in a non-sexual sort of way.

Silence fell, as Helen waited for Abby to speak and Abby's adrenaline rush had worn off and the blonde was finally looking around their whereabouts. They were standing in a building that vaguely resembled the old, pre-Prospero™ ARC, but mostly hollowed and replaced with some research tables, some pieces of equipment in the distance, several rooms (mostly closed-off), a large number of clones (one or two of whom were standing next to her and Helen with light machine guns of some sort), Helen, and-

Slowly, Abby turned around, and a tattooed giantess of a woman, armed with some sort of a spear, grinned down on her, far too literally for comfort.

"Hi!" the giantess said, revealing teeth that had been filed. "I'm Kurangaituku, the Fairy of the Mist, and you are?"

Slowly, Abby turned back to face Helen – even she was better than this giantess with a carnivorous grin and an eagle's eyes. "What happens to me now?" she asked quietly.

Helen looked genuinely thoughtful and not mocking for once. "Tell me, young lady, what are the last things that you remember?" she asked, also quietly.

"The last thing? April and me were fighting, she slammed something into me, and sent me towards the manifested time anomaly," Abby muttered, as she rubbed the place that April had hit last, and something fell from that spot of her blouse with a clink. "What's that?"

'That' proved to be a locket of some sort, vaguely similar to the crystal pyramid Helen had used to infiltrate the ARC for the last time as 'Eve'...only it was round, and opaquely black, like a piece of obsidian instead.

"Well now!" the giantess' hand shot out and grabbed the locket very, very carefully. "Helen, now how would a cur like April get her hands on one of Geraldine's treasures?"

"One answer comes to mind – bloody, stupid, Johnson!" Helen exhaled. "Apparently, stealing the map hadn't been enough for her; she had to plunder an entire cache! Kuro, can you please go to her and imply that it is time to come clean? Feel free to use your special little touches – but only as a last resort and only if she does not co-operate. I, meanwhile, will handle things in the 20th century."

"Roger," the giantess – Kuro – nodded, all humour completely gone from her and vanished in a flash of a time anomaly.

Abby blinked. With Kuro gone, odds had improved in her favour just a tiny, little bit. "What's going to happen to me?" she asked quietly.

"I don't know," Helen admitted. "You shouldn't even be here, actually. Thanks to Johnson, April got some very dangerous futuristic technology, and she used it on you to send you to death in her stead."

"To death?"

"Yes, to die by being drawn into a time anomaly and I would rather not talk about it," Helen continued, almost ignoring the younger woman. "Anyways, April should've been here instead, and that would've been a totally different situation, and it will be – yet. As for you, I honestly do not know. I will just put you into a biological stasis chamber-"

"What? No!" Abby shouted, as she had learned from Connor's Star Wars trivia that stasis chambers were nothing good. "Please!"

"Well, in that case... look. We have no reason to trust each other, but if you swear not to double-cross me, backstab, or use me as Leek did, I will take you with me to the 20th century to help me fix your mess, as well as deal with Iymrith's half-breed. Do we have a deal?"

Abby had no idea who or what was Iymrith, but... "Only if you promise to do the same to me," she replied firmly.

For a moment that was both brief and long the two women looked into each other's eyes... and then they shook their hands.

\\\

"Is everybody out?" Matt busily asked everybody else.

"No!" Connor yelled, desperately. "Abby is still gone! We need to go back!"

"We can't!" Matt yelled back, almost as desperately, "Philip's time anomaly is tearing it all apart! We must stop it!"

A loud, almost despondent hiss of pain cut their argument short, as April Leonard crawled out of the "New Dawn" building, her legs trailing brokenly behind her, leaving a pair of bloody trails, followed eagerly by several pterosaurs, which opted to follow her on foot rather than on wing.

"Please," April looked at the two men and Emily. "H-Help me..."

And then she fainted.

_End Chapter 1_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 2**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

"So, please, don't hesitate to update me your information: where is Daphne?" James Lester's voice lacked some of its bite, perhaps due to his own wound, but still.

"Abby? She appears to be gone," Matt said hollowly, trying to his best to avoid looking at Jess, who upon hearing the news turned paler than when she was suffering from a beetle's bite. "April may know more, but right now, she got her own problems to take care of."

"Ah, yes. Broken bones and torn ligaments in her legs, and her hips aren't doing all that well either," Lester agreed evenly. "Fascinating. With pain blockers and I know not what she has been given, she will be out like a light for days, and barely in a condition to talk afterwards either. Wonderful."

"Sir?"

"Don't sir me," Lester exhaled slowly. "This isn't the first loss I had seen in the field team: Cutter died, Lewis up and left, Page died, Quinn is also gone...I really should've gotten used to it, I suppose. But, somehow, Shaggy, you and Daphne had always managed to pull through, the two of you, you know? Seeing only one of you is like seeing a single piece out of a double-set, and believe me, after listening to Becker's hysterics after Page died, I know what I'm talking about."

"Sir, Mr. Lester, I'm sorry-"

"For what?" Lester said flatly. "For losing a comrade-in-arms during the line of duty? Do not. You failed and there is no going back."

"Lester-"

"Don't," Lester shook his head, as Jess stared at him in something approaching a mix of fear and respect – but then, she did see him take out a chronologically displaced arboreal dinosaur and stand-up to a pair of future predators, so a certain change in perspective was in order. "Not now. Just grin and bear on, or something. Or leave, as Lewis did, as Quinn did. The turnover rate at the ARC is quite high, and you probably were here the longest as it was – besides me, of course."

"...Okay," Connor said quickly, seeing how Lester was about to rant. "Is there anything else-?"

"It's stupid, you know, for I know what Helen was capable of, but seeing how you told me that all that you saw was a video recording of her – could it be faked? With that CGI of yours or something?"

There was a pause, as Connor nodded, startled a bit. "Yes, but that's academic, isn't it? We stopped "New Dawn", Philip is gone, the manifested time anomalies are gone-"

"Perhaps, but I have," Lester shook his head, as a time anomaly alarm began to sound in the ARC. "Never mind. Go and deal with this situation instead, would you?"

Feeling rather chastised the remains of the ARC field team just up and left.

\\\

The future...

A world, where landed formed high, steep, cragged mountain ridges. Volcanoes, which spew fire and ash into the sky and drench the rocks with magma. Seas with their sharply sloping floors where unmistakable horrors dwell. And, finally, caverns, where the remainders of civilization –or civilizations – dwell.

Boom, boom, boom!

The war drums of Vigdis' tribe were echoing all across the cavern complex as fires brought illumination into its' depths away from the opening.

Boom, boom, boom!

As the fires crackled on coal and bone, they brought out the shadows of Vigdis' tribe – misshape silhouettes, belonging to one of the more powerful band of mutants in this part of the world. Shaped vaguely human, they spotted overt features that showed their difference from the pure humanity: skin too pale or eyes and ears too large, features that were draconic rather than human, bodies that looked more like bipedal rats or bears or even humanoid snakes.

Boom!

"My people!" Vigdis – almost five meters tall, over two tons in weight, purple-skinned, double-headed – roars towards her tribe. "For many a year we suffered as the so-called pure blooded humans lived in luxury in their so-called remains, but no more! At last, a glimmer of hope has come this way and soon, we will see the sun! We will walk where we could not! We will rule where humans once rule! My people, we are going to change the past, the present, and the future!"

"Vigdis."

The new speaker is far smaller and far quieter than Vigdis – a pure blood human, through and through. Vigdis easily dwarfs her, but the human – her eyes as cold and humane as a wind in November – shows no fear nor intimidation, and blades that she wields as sharp.

"Vigdis. Where are the prisoners?"

"Here, old genii," Vigdis chortles through one of her mouths, as one of her hands indicates towards several figures bound next to one of fires: they are reptilian, inhuman, but they are not Vigdis' tribe.

They are Anathema.

"What are you going to do now?" Vigdis continues to chortle, but the 'genii' ignores her, facing the prisoners instead.

"Caro, I'm sorry to see you like this, but," she turn back and faces Vigdis face to faces, "but, Vigdis, as your daughter had told me, the only way to stop you is to kill you, you inflated balloon of pride and greed. So, one last time I'm giving you a chance to use that spinal column of yours for thinking and submit."

All four of Vigdis' eyes narrow in anger. "Is that a challenge?"

"It's an offer, you double-headed halfwit," the 'genii' sneers. "Seriously, do you have a brain at all? Your daughter may be half the thing you are, but even she's smarter than you!"

Vigdis strikes.

Her opponent parries.

And April Leonard is released from the nightmares of her past.

_End chapter 2_


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 3**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

_Note: contains spoilers for the official series._

As April's heartbeat and adrenaline levels returned to normal, she realized that she was not in the futuristic cave, but in the modern, 20th-century, medical wing of the ARC, which was rather a complete opposite to a cave. But...

"Where... where am I?" she gasped, as she fervently looked around, searching for her glasses.

"Back at the Center, Miss Leonard," James Lester said firmly, as he sat down next to her (he had to go to the medical wing himself to be bandaged-up after being mauled slightly by the future predators). "I was wondering, if you could answer a question or two?"

"My mother," April shook her head, still being largely in her own world, due to painkillers and other medication she was given during her surgery. "My mother. She wanted to rule and asked the genii to help – after all, that is what geniis are supposed to do. But the genii refused. She did not want my mother to rule. My mother and the genii fought. The genii fought her and killed her, and let the Anathema go to the Promised Land instead. Why? What did the Anathema had that we didn't?"

"...You're not pretending, are you?" Lester said quietly. "You really _are_ out of it, aren't you? Well, sorry to bother you at this moment, we will try again later?"

"Why?" April half-wailed half-howled, "why the genii didn't agree that my mother should rule? My mother would've made a great ruler!"

"Nurse!" Lester quickly called out to the ARC's medical staff, "give Miss Leonard some soporifics or something, please? She needs them!"

\\\

"Um, guys?" Jess's rather quiet and subdued voice had startled the remainder of the field team. "Can I come with you, please?"

There was a pause, as the others, especially Becker, just stared. "Jess," and it was Becker who finally, spoke, "what's wrong?"

"I want to help," the other woman replied, simply. "Can I come along, please?"

"The co-ordination center-"

"Lester told me that he'll manage it meanwhile – apparently, he has nothing to do until April recovers and stops talking about genies," Jess elaborated with more energy than before. "And he did do it before, once – what with the giant salamanders, you remember, Connor?"

"I remember," Connor, Matt and Emily replied as once, startling Becker.

Becker, however, was not finished yet. "Jess..."

"I promise to stay in the background!" Jess said quickly. "Guys, please, let me help. I just, back in the ARC, I feel-"

"All right, you can come," Emily said, suddenly, "but you will stay in the background unless it's totally safe, or totally necessary. Got it?"

"Got it," Jess replied, some of her good humour returning at last, and the ARC team drove off.

_End chapter 3_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 4**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

_Note: contains spoilers for the official series._

The mood was subdued as the ARC field team approached the location of the latest time anomaly. "A public bathhouse?" Connor exclaimed in a half-hearted attempt to light the mood. "Now I must've seen everything!"

There was a good hard pause as everyone tried to figure out if he was joking or not.

"So, are you joking or not?" Emily asked when it became clear that Connor was trying to elaborate. "Because right now? It could go either way."

"Then let's keep it that way," Connor muttered quietly. "I just don't want to go wrong the way our last mission did."

Becker opened his mouth to say something, then caught Jess's worried face and changed his mind. "Well, then maybe we need to make a new strategy. Emily, would you and Jess mind covering the rear?"

"Isn't it the strategy that we decided on in the first place?" Matt muttered wryly.

Something shifted in Becker's facial expression. "Excuse me," he grabbed Matt by the arm and began to lead him away from the cars towards the doors of the bathhouse, clearly intent on having a confrontation.

"Um," Connor turned to Emily. "Should we step in?"

"No, we probably would just make it worse... wait! Something changed," Emily said slowly, "and stopped too quickly. We need to join them – _all__of__us_."

And so they went.

\\\

"Okay, what's wrong?" Emily asked as she approached Matt and Becker, with Jess and Connor trailing behind her.

"Jess," Becker said firmly, his eyes fixed on something just 'peeking' from beneath the door, "please, stay behind – you promised!"

"Well, yes, but," Jess leaned over and around Emily to take a good look and frowned. The thing Becker and others were looking at was a stain of a dark brownish-red colour, not quite rust, more like-

"Blood," Emily whispered, "somebody already was hurt in there, and-"

"No," Jess said firmly, as she hardened her grip on an EMP, "I'm not staying behind on my first mission like some useless baggage. I'm not."

"Jess, don't argue, you might die!" Becker snapped. "Maitland actually had field experience, let alone a year of survival in the Cretaceous, and yet Leonard had killed her, somehow, I'm sure! I do not want you to die – not ever in general and not now in particular!"

There was silence, and not just because Becker had been yelling just moments ago. "Well," Jess finally spoke, "well, Hilary, I don't know whether to slap you or to hug you or both... but I'm not staying behind. I promise not to die, but I'm not letting you die too."

"Jess, I can take care of myself," Becker stammered, rather surprised to see Jess's new, resolute face. "We-"

"Becker," Jess said firmly, "don't. As you have pointed just now, training and experience goes so far, so don't be a hypocrite."

"Fine," Becker deflated, "but-"

"This is all very exciting, but are we coming in or what?" Connor spoke for the first time since Jess and Becker began to argue...when the door creaked open – seemingly of its own volition.

"Now that," Matt muttered in the following silence, "is probably a trap."

\\\

As the ARC field team carefully stepped inside (with Jess and Emily in the rear, as promised), there was no actual indication of a trap, however, and the blood trail seemingly vanished in one of the baths, now abandoned, but still full of water.

"Hmm," Matt and Becker began to carefully swing their rifles around, looking for some track... when Becker suddenly halted.

"I got another idea," he said grimly, and flung something that resembled a grenade at the ceiling. In fact, it was a grenade that exploded into dozens of small rubber pellets that just bounced around while the ARC team huddled behind the doors.

"Becker, what are you doing?" Matt hissed.

"Thinking outside the box, 'Leader'!" Becker hissed back. "I've been neglecting my duties of keeping this team safe for too long!"

"This is _my_ job-"

"Guys, the pellets have stopped bouncing," Connor said quickly, as he snuck another peak into the bathhouse.

Crack!

\\\

For several moments nobody moved as Connor lay prone on the ground, wheezing.

"Connor," Jess whispered, "are you hit?"

"Just by Becker," Connor wheezed, "he knocked me down as soon as the gun fired... that was a gun that fired, right?"

"Some sort of a repeating rifle, judging by the slug, and not one of ours – a Yankee one, I think," Becker muttered, also prone. So was everyone else, for that matter, but Connor was only one lying on his back, winded.

"What's a repeating rifle?" Emily asked curiously, as she began to get up.

"Down!" Becker yelled desperately, and Emily dropped – just in time, as several more shots riddled through the door and the air on her and Jess's side.

Becker sprung, whirling around the door and launching a second stun grenade in the direction of the shooter. More pellets flew, some even hitting Becker as he lay prone on the floor, but the majority of them remained on the other side of the bath.

Something large and heavy fell into the bath water.

"Got you," Becker grinned, but that grin immediately vanished, as the sniper burst from the bath. It was shaped like a man – two legs, two arms, a single head, but its skin was covered in greyish-grin scales, it had a short but powerful tail behind it, and its face was more like that of a reptile, complete with two small horns, positioned directly one after another like those of an African rhinoceros.

As Becker watched, the creature discarded the rifle, pulling out a large machete-like knife with its other hand and swung it at the man. Becker was barely able to block the knife's swing with his rifle, but the impact not only knocked him on the back, but also broke the rifle in two.

The creature swung again, and swung hard, but Becker twisted, causing the descending blade to miss him by a few millimetres. The creature grabbed Becker with its other hand, and Becker pulled out a combat knife of his own, and began to desperately stab his assailant in the stomach and groin, thighs and the knife-holding hand – and his efforts were not altogether unsuccessful, as the creature flung him away, howling from about a dozen non-fatal stabbed wounds.

Matt fired his own taser at the creature, and hit it dead center, dropping it in its tracks.

"Good!" Emily proclaimed, with venom in her voice unheard-of ever before by any of the ARC team. She stalked out towards the prone creature and shouted, loudly:

"You! I know your kind works in pairs, you monster! Come out and face me, or are you the coward that can only shoot in the back – or the coward that leaves their partner behind?"

A second creature emerged from the decorative shrubbery to Emily's right. It cast away its own rifle and pulled out its own knife – all in one smooth motion as it charged. Its knife descended upon one Emily's kukris... who deflected it in one smooth motion, while stabbing her assailant in the thigh with the second blade.

Blood spurted, and the creature collapsed. The fact that Matt shot it as well was not amiss either.

"And now," Emily said flatly, but Matt interrupted her:

"No! Emily – don't!"

"Matt!" Emily yelled back, and there was pain in her voice, not unlike the pain that was evident in Connor's voice when he talked about Abby, or Becker when he talked about Jess. "These things... they got the majority of my tribe...only, I, Charlotte and Ethan had survived... they have to pay..."

"Oh really? We do, do we?"

Becker, Matt and Emily stiffened, as more of those creatures emerged into the bathhouse's antechamber, flanking two more people.

One of them was a woman – well, probably. She had no tail, and her scales were only in patches, and they were bluish in colour, to match her hair, and she had a horn on her forehead – a single horn, not two, and much bigger than those of others, but she still looked mostly human.

The other newcomer was Ethan Dombrowski.

"You!" Emily spat, ignoring everyone else. "Ethan, how could you? Have you forgotten what they did to the rest of us? Have you forgotten _Charlotte_?"

"No, Emily, I have not," Ethan replied, his voice unusually serious, "but during all these times that were together, I realized one thing: with Charlotte gone, all I care about is killing things...and also people."

"You know, I also realized one thing," Becker suddenly spoke up, still holding on to his own blade. "If you look past the horn, and the bluish hair, and those ears, she looks rather like our fearless leader. Matt, do you have something to tell us?"

"No," the woman answered instead, "we never net. But we do share a father: I am the daughter of the one his people knew as Iuna."

"Lies!" Matt erupted. "My father and lady Iuna were friends, nothing more, and she was a human-"

It was then that Jess and Connor jumped from behind their scanty cover and discharged their tasers at the light fixtures up ahead. The latter naturally, was overloaded and exploded in a cloud of embers and sparks, half-blinding and half-surprising everybody. Moreover, it was enough, for Emily and Matt and Becker to flee out of the bathhouse into their car, and do not stop until they reached the ARC building.

_End chapter 4_


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 5**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

When James Lester learned that the confrontation in the bathhouse proved to be even worse than an ordinary fiasco, he was, naturally, upset.

"This is worse than the time when Leek had us running around in the circles with his bombs and neutrally clamped future predators," he told the ARC field team at their emergency meeting. "Shaggy, Parker – good thinking regarding those tasers of Anderson; Becker – good to see that your army hype does have some basis in reality; and Merchant – care to share why you got so out of character?"

Emily took a deep breath, looked at Matt for reassurance, and turned back to face Lester.

"Remember when I, and Charlotte, and Ethan came to your time for the first time? Well, the time we had just left – the one with those arboreal raptors you call them – belonged to those creatures, and their mistress, whom they called Iymrith. Before then, our tribe was more than just three people, but much more. Those creatures we just encountered in the bathhouse... they attacked us with no provocation – we meant no harm, we were just passing through!"

"And the knife work?" Lester said gently, realizing for once that this topic was very, very painful for Emily Merchant.

"Oh, that was before." Emily explained, calming down a bit. "When we were travelling through the Ice Age Europe, we rescued a woman who'd been gored in the crux by a prehistoric wild boar. We healed her, and in gratitude, she taught me how to fight with the kukris," Emily's voice grew wistful. "You know, I half-regret that I didn't insist that she comes with us. Maybe, if she had been with us when those monsters attacked, we would have been able to fight them off the first time..."

"Very good," Lester said in his more usual manner, "but we still need to know more about them."

"More? They work in pairs – usually; they are armed with what captain Becker calls repeating rifles, some sort of smaller firearms – pistols of some kind, and those knives. Alexandra... I saw her only distantly, when we were fleeing, so I cannot really tell anything about her; and _Ethan_-"

"Thank you, Emily, but we know all about Ethan already," Lester said quickly.

"Oh. Right. Well, then I should also add that these creatures can blend into their surroundings, like chameleons or the devilfish that can be eaten for seafood," Emily said primly. "That's why we couldn't see them at first, too."

There was a pause as everyone thought over Emily's last words.

"Okay, that's new," Lester finally broke it.

"Not really. We already had something similar to that – that gremlin from the future, remember?" Connor said quietly.

"Well-"

"Excuse me," Lorraine spoke via intercom, "but April Leonard had recovered consciousness and coherence, and you told me to notify you when she did?"

"Ah, excellent," James said cheerfully. "Shaggy, you're with me. It is time to give Miss Leonard a little chat, and you are invited! Oh, and one more thing. Becker – start working on the security. If we're going to be at war with some colour-changing dinosaur men, I want upgrades!"

"Yes, Mr. Lester," Becker only nodded, and Lester left (taking Connor with him) to talk to April Leonard for real.

_End chapter 5_


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 6**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

After Lester and Connor left, the meeting was pretty much broken up, for while everybody had something to say, everyone also wanted to have a private conversation, and a more or less public meeting was not the way to do it, so they broke up and went their separate ways...

\\\

"Good day, Miss Leonard," Lester said calmly, "glad to see you back among the living, yes?"

"You – shut up!" April snapped, half-angrily and half-bitterly. "It was because of your actions that Philip's dead!"

"Our actions?" Connor asked indignantly, "it's his fault for consorting with Helen Cutter of all people!"

"I didn't see anyone new at the 'New Dawn' site but you people," April growled back, "not to mention that what Philip built was just a larger version of your prototype-"

"And you were there when I built it along the way, remember?" Connor was not backing down. "What were you here, then for? Decoration?"

"No, to ensure that you don't get distracted by that midget of yours," April growled, "and to assist you with the lesser tasks. Honestly, I didn't understand half of what you and Philip were talking about, especially when it came to technical terms, and-"

"Abby wasn't a midget! And besides – she is dead. Did you kill her?" Connor asked April, sobering slightly.

"The two of us were doing our best to kill each other off back then," April said thoughtfully, "so yes, probably I did. Would you rather it be her here than me?"

"Yes," Connor said instinctively.

April's face crumpled and she began to weep – quietly.

Next to Connor, Lester too emitted a sound that was somewhat similar to what April was making, and Connor... just stood there feeling lost: it was the first time he had made a woman cry, and he did not like it one bit.

"April, please! I am sorry! Abby was my girlfriend!" he tried to shake April out of it, but the bespectacled blonde wasn't responding to him anymore, until – "With Philip gone, we're the senior members of Prospero™ in charge of 'New Dawn' and related projects, so we have to work together!"

"Say what?" April's eyes were still red and moist, but her gaze was now slightly more alert than before.

"With Philip gone, the two of us are in charge of at least a part of Prospero™," Connor repeated his previous statement, "so you want to work together or what?"

"I think that we have to," April repeated, also slowly. "I mean, you don't like me, I don't like you, but we cannot just abandon Prospero™, can we? People – real, decent people – don't do things like that, do they?"

"No they don't," Connor admitted quietly. "Does that mean that you're in?"

"Yes," April nodded in reply.

"Splendid!" Lester put his two cents in. "I'm in too. What," he added, as the younger people just stared at him, "this was my idea. We need Prospero™ afloat or else the ARC may be sunk too."

"Mr. Lester," Connor said flatly, "you're all heart."

"I know."

\\\

"So, Jess, you want to talk?" Becker asked quietly Jess Parker, as the two of them had wandered to the ARC's control center.

"Well, yes, but," unlike her usual self, Jess hesitated, but Becker did not comment on that, for a change.

For few more moment Jess fiddled, until she turned and faced Becker. "Hilary, you could've died today!"

"So could you!" Becker shot back, startled, but not _that_ much.

"Well, yes, but," Jess fell silent again before turning towards Becker once more. "Hilary, I confess it: I'm something of a coward. I'm not much for outdoors either, and I initially ended up working for Prospero™ because they paid well and I love being well paid."

"But?" Becker asked, feeling quite confused.

"But I care more about you than about anything that I mentioned above, so... I am sorry for being so shallow and for babbling right now and not making any sense-"

"Jess, you're not shallow," Becker said firmly, "you helped me out at least once, when Ethan had set up that bomb trap, remember? You're kind and competent, and you rescued us just now too, as well."

"It was mostly Connor's idea," Jess sniffed, "I just went along with it."

"You didn't have to go along, remember? I doubt that Lester's any better than you with the controls," Becker said firmly, "but you did, and that alone counts for a lot. I mean, you did not, and do not, have to go with us-"

"Yes I do," Jess said firmly, "I want to matter – for a number of reasons. And speaking of number of reasons, what are we going to do about Ethan?"

"Bulk up security a bit," Becker said thoughtfully, "I'll have to talk to Lester about it, and I want to talk to Emily some more about her experiences in the past, but I already have ideas as to how to deal with Ethan's new minions – they aren't so tough to begin with!"

"No, it's you who're so amazing!" Jess giggled, some of her usual good humour finally returning to her voice. "You should be more careful, though, what if they decide to launch an attack on you while you're alone?"

"Well, I usually spend the nights in the ARC bunk beds already, so tonight shouldn't be any different," Becker shrugged, mock-casually.

"Oh," Jess blinked, genuinely surprised. "Want me to keep you company?"

It was Becker's turn to be surprised. "Jess, if you don't want to-"

"But I do," Jess said firmly, "I do."

\\\

The silence between Matt and Emily was not so much oppressive, as it was uncomfortable. "Well," Matt said, trying to put his emotions into words, "well, uh, you had life before the ARC?"

"Matt, we all had lives before the ARC, including you," Emily said sternly, "and if you have problems with mine, if I'm not the person you thought I was-"

"Actually, you were still the same person I thought you were, just rawer, less restrained than normally," Matt replied. "That what startled me, really."

"I am? I was? Really?" Emily said, surprised.

"Emily, you can handle Becker and _me_ when you want to, so I'm not exactly surprised to learn that you can defend yourself with more than just EMDs," Matt confessed. "It's just that I don't really like killing people – or anyone or anything for that matter; back in the future, we were taught that each life is precious and we should avoid killing unless it's absolutely necessary."

"And in the bathhouse it wasn't?" Emily asked more tartly than she had intended.

"We had the EMDs!" Matt protested ardently.

"Yes, Matt, but there was also Ethan, who would not be cowed by them, and there was also Alexandra," Emily shook her head. "Who is she, anyways? Do you have any ideas?"

"No, yes, sort of," Matt admitted. "Lady Iuna was a scientist from a settlement allied to ours; she and my father worked in the EMDs in the future...there were some feelings between them to be sure, but she was a human! And there was no sex between them, there couldn't be..."

"Matt, I know that it's hard for you to understand, but parents have sex too," Emily said, sounding more like her usual self.

"It's not that," Matt shook his head, "it's that I wonder-"

A time anomaly alarm stole whatever Matt was going to say next and replaced it with:

"Crud."

_End chapter 6_


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 7**

_Disclaimer: except for Caroline's crew, all of the characters belong to Impossible Pictures™._

The novelty of travelling through a time anomaly had largely worn off, but it was still quite fun, Abby Maitland reckoned. True, her travelling companion, this time, was not quite her number one – at all. Rather she would have had Connor with her...

Surprisingly, at a mere thought of Connor, Abby felt butterflies in her stomach – but not in a good way. Still, she did not have time to dwell on it, because she got a chance to look around her neighbourhood. "Helen, where are we?" she asked, inquiringly.

"At a house of my ally," Helen replied as she looked at the younger woman with some concern. "Is there something wrong with you?"

"I honestly can't say," Abby shook her head, clearing it. "So, when are we, then?"

"Good question," Helen smiled slightly, "but this time there's no need for it: we're back at your time: apparently, your friends were able to deactivate Philip's invention successfully, so there're _some_ good news, at least."

"Great!" Abby smiled, but to her concern, as soon as she thought about the rest of the ARC's field crew, the queasy feeling returned in force, and there was no doubt about that this time.

"What's wrong?" Helen repeated her question, and this time Abby was sure that the older woman was worried; but there was no time to reply as a door opened, and in walked a new character.

"Genii! Long time no see! What brings you here this time?" asked Caroline Steele.

\\\

There was a pause as Abby carefully observed the other woman while Caroline had not noticed her yet. Ever since the incident with Leek, Caroline had not changed one bit, she looked as glamorous as always, but Abby did not forgot that when the two of them got to a fight in Leek's captivity, there had not been any decisive winner.

"Helen," she carefully ignored Caroline, "what are we doing with her?"

Caroline appeared to have noticed Abby for the first time. "Genii," she repeated her odd title to Helen, "you're keeping strange company these days-"

"My company is usually strange; _I__'__m_ usually strange," Helen said calmly, "but Caro, I really need your assistance, for you see, my friend here has fallen amok of April – do you remember Vigdis' daughter?"

"The daughter of Vigdis?" Caroline half-hissed, half-snarled, before turning and facing Abby face on. "Then until your feud with her is resolved, my home is your castle, pure-blood!"

"Um, you're welcome?" Abby said in a small voice, unsure what to do next.

"Caro, please, there're no need for such formalities," Helen also replied, more calmly than Abby did. "My companion, after all, is not from your time, she knows nothing of what you do."

"True," Caroline nodded, "but anyone who had fallen victim to a member of _that_ family deserves assistance."

"No argument there, but I thank you for it all the same," Helen nodded calmly. "In any case, I know that something is wrong, because-"

"Um, there's nothing wrong with me, really!" Abby interrupted quickly, "I just had caught a bug or something, because-"

There was a large beeping, and it came from Helen Cutter's time anomaly manifestation device. "A time anomaly has opened somewhere," she said thoughtfully, "an unshielded time anomaly."

"We need to go there! My friends will be there!" Abby said firmly, ignoring the unpleasant sensations that shot through her when she thought about them.

"Very well," Helen said thoughtfully, "I have a bad feeling about this time anomaly too. Caro, can you give us a ride?"

"But of course!" Caroline nodded in reply. "Even if Vigdis' daughter wasn't involved, our debt to you, genii, cannot be resolved with more than just a ride!"

Helen just sighed and stayed silent; though she had plenty of questions, Abby stayed silent too.

\\\

The bathhouse was a mess, or at least its' atrium was. "What has happened here?" Abby said, trying to break the silence after a tense, though not uncomfortable, ride. "I'm guessing that the team had come and gone?" She frowned, as there was something wrong – not in the bathhouse, but in her.

Caroline, meanwhile, leaned to Helen and whispered something quietly into her ear.

"All right, let's go and check," Helen said, in a louder voice. "Miss Maitland, if you're feeling queasy, please stay back-"

"I feel fine!" Abby shot back. "Look, I show it to you!" She walked to a nearest closed door and flung it open – and it was almost the last action that she had ever did, as a massive knife blade flashed before her face, and she almost didn't have time to leap away.

Abby's new attacker... was essentially invisible; more realistically, he was so blurry, that Abby was able to see only his basic body outline, but that was enough. Though she was prone, she was able to dodge the second, descending swing, and kick with both of her legs, hitting the attacker's knee.

The attacker was not only blurry, he was also solid and powerful, as he was able to back away, rather than fall, as Abby expected him to do. However, that was enough, as Abby jumped up and launched several strikes, both kicks and punches, keeping to the outer side of the blade-wielding hand trying to keep her assailant off-balance – and then she got punched.

The punch was solid and powerful, just as the rest of her assailant was, and Abby was knocked quite some distance away, finally falling – and skidding - on her back. On the other hand, her opponent became visible, and it was monstrous, some sort of a lizard man, with a pair of small horns, positioned one after another on its forehead.

And then Helen was before it, blocking its' blade with her own – one of her own – and swinging the other blade at the attacker's own knife – and that blade broke.

The creature flung the broken blade away and shifted into a boxing stance, its' outline becoming blurry.

...And then some barking sound caught Abby's – caught everyone's – attention. Everyone turned around, and saw Caroline drag another one of these creatures out – clearly wounded, very pale, very weak. As everyone observed, Caroline – still effortlessly dragging the much-larger and heavier being – turned to face Helen's combatant and emitted another series of barking, inhuman cries, her mouth, and especially lower jaw distending in a way that human anatomy simply could not allow.

It was at that moment that Abby felt some hot stickiness on her face and realized that she was bleeding. It was too much for her – she fainted.

\\\

When Abby awoke, she was in a bed, presumably back at Caroline's house (if that really was Caroline, and not some shapeshifter pretending to be her), with Helen looking down at her with contrition. "Abby," she said carefully, "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Abby responded, equally carefully.

Instead of replying, Helen produced a hand mirror, and Abby stared: the initial knife blade landed just a grazing wound, but it was enough to inflict a long, though a shallow, gash upon her face, including a nicked right nostril. There was going to be a noticeable scar and the... substitute of iodine that Caroline and her people had used upon her face and the rough stitches did not help matters either.

"Why not a hospital?" she asked, weakly, as he face felt numb (her lips had not been sliced, fortunately).

"Caro and her people don't trust hospitals and neither do I," Helen confessed, "plus I wasn't sure if that's the right thing – a knife wound would involve the police, and then what? So, I am sorry for your scarification, Miss Maitland-"

"But there's a 'but'," Abby stated, rather than asked.

"Well, yes," Helen nodded. "The scar is shallow; I'm sure that once this situation is resolved, Lester – or whoever else will be in charge of the ARC – will be able to pay for your plastic surgery; furthermore," she added with a grin, "Caro and her people believe that scars are the signs of maturity and of experience, so I cannot quite find the heart to be cross at them."

"Did they do something similar to you?" Abby asked, a bit flatly.

"No. Life did something similar to me," Helen answered, also flatly. "Want to see?"

"Am I interrupting something?" Caroline looked into the room before Abby could reply.

"No," Abby said slowly, "nothing that can't wait a little while."

"Good, because I want to apologize for mocking your short stature before, Abigail Maitland," Caroline said in full seriousness. "There are few pure blood humans who could stand to one of them unarmed, and you're one of them! I'm humbled!"

"Er, apology accepted," Abby said slowly, before turning back to the older woman. "Helen, what is going on around here? What April dragged me into?"

"That's a long story, and a complex one," Helen exhaled. "Tell me, do you know anything about the future?"

"Well, yes, we fought a number of futuristic monsters, obviously, and Matt, Matt Anderson is from the future," Abby spoke before she could think.

"Really? Matt Anderson, the son of Gideon, half-brother of Alexandra?" Caroline leaned forwards, and there was genuine hatred in her voice. "_That_ Matt? He's _here_?"

"Um, yes?" Abby said meekly. "He's from the future, he showed me proof when we had to stop Philip Burton and 'New Dawn'-"

"Good," Helen said, smiling though there was little humour in her smile, "then you already got a very brief introduction. So, now why don't you make yourself comfortable and listen to a long and complex story?"

_End chapter 7_


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 8**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

The zoo of London – Abby's old haunt – was quiet, maybe even too quiet, as the ARC's field team arrived in it, the visiting crowds having already fled in panic.

Normally, one would expect the team to have come alone, but this time they were not. This time, Becker took a small number of his men as backup. In the past, perhaps some of his former teammates would have objected quite passionately about that, but by now there was only Connor left, and he was currently busy with Lester and April Leonard, dealing with the none-field team business of the ARC and Prospero™.

Of course, Connor had been _quite_ reluctant to stay behind – the memories of him almost breaking away from the team due to Philip's manipulations in past were still raw – but this time the situation was different, with Abby's absence being the most noticeable one. (The absence of Philip was a close second, though.)

Still, Connor (and Lester, and April, one supposed) did leave their mark on the ARC's field team, by supplying the team with video cameras to provide the feedback, in case of a similarly-related emergency like the one that occurred in the bathhouse – another new development that gone with minimum fuss, especially by the ARC's standards.

"Don't get your expectations too high," Emily muttered crossly when Jess had explained to her how video cameras worked. "Ethan is too cunning to repeat himself so quickly – you underestimate him!"

"No we don't, it's just that we can't successfully foresee what he and his new friends will do next, and besides – we still have to deal with the time anomalies, it is still our duty," Becker replied, then saw everyone else looking at him at a certain way and amended himself. "Fine, it's still our _job_ – happy now?"

"Deliriously," Emily muttered in reply, and that was the end of it. Well, actually, the end of it happened _after_ Becker gave Jess one of his stingball grenades "in case of an emergency", and since it wasn't an actually explosive grenade and with Ethan around any sort of weaponry – even non-lethal one – was never amiss, not even Matt could truly object to it, and so the notion passed, and the now the ARC field team was here, at the London Zoo, complete with reinforcements.

And it was still too quiet.

\\\

"I don't like it," muttered Jess, as she subtly came closer to Becker, "this place is too quiet for a zoo. That the people are gone is one thing, but for _all_ of the animals to be quiet? Something is too wrong."

"Yes, Jess," Becker nodded in agreement, doing his best to bite on one of his more typical answers: "yes young padawan, master of the bleeping obvious you are."

"I think I see something out of place," Emily called out silently, pointing to a piece of paper nailed to a nearest tree with some sort of a penknife. "I'll go and check it out."

"Emily, wait!" Matt called out, but Emily was already there, taking off the paper. "Dear ARC," she read aloud, "were you really expecting us to do the same thing twice? No! Ethan and Co."

"It's a trap!" Jess yelled shrilly and flung her missile at building to Emily's right. She failed to hit her intended target, and hit a wall instead, causing the grenade to explode and to send pellets everywhere, but for the future predator, who perhaps for the first time in its life had missed its lunge, it was enough.

"Oh!" Emily swore, as several more of the future predators appeared on the scene, ready to lunge at the people. "What are these things?"

"Future predators!" yelled Matt and Becker at the same time, just as the Zoo's speakers sprung to life. A sudden outburst of sound was perhaps the only thing that could stun a future predator, or even several of them, and that what happened now: the monsters froze long enough for Becker's men (and of course Becker and Matt themselves) to bring them down with the EMPs.

"You know," Connor's voice sounded through the comm.-links, "this was actually kind of cool, all of this remote-control rescuing, you know?"

The mystery of the zoo's conveniently activating sound system was explained.

\\\

"Yes, the cameras began to send information as soon as you attached them to the EMP barrels," Connor explained patiently, "and no, it was Lester's idea, but yes, I thought that you'd figure it out before anything had happened, so I'm sorry if there are some misunderstandings-"

"Connor," Becker said patiently, "you're babbling. Please, stop channelling Jess at her lowest, and be yourself!"

"Okay, let's try this again," Connor took a deep breath. "Guys, I'm sorry for being so sneaky – it was Lester's idea of keeping an eye on the team."

"Makes sense, though before the control center was doing just fine without being so in control," Jess commented, perhaps a bit snidely.

"This is Lester's version of dealing with survivor's guilt," Becker mused. "Got to admit, I never thought that he would have any guilt ever. Guess I was wrong." (Jess slapped him slightly on the shoulder.) "So, what now?"

"Now we deal we just accept that things have changed around here and move on?" Emily suggested and her suggestion was accepted with more or less good graces.

_End chapter 8_


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 9**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

_Note: contains spoilers for the official series._

It was lunchtime, and the ARC field team were having one in the ARC's cafeteria, trying to have a civil conversation. So far what they had was undoubtedly mixed.

"All right, so I can understand how sound was able to disarm these predators, in a manner of speaking," Jess was telling Becker, "what I can't understand, is why the extreme prejudice in putting them down? After all, they're just animals, aren't they?"

"They're not," Matt answered instead, sounding fully serious. "They appeared sometime between this time and mine, and they helped in bringing down the civilization as humanity knew it. They are vicious, but they are intelligent, and can even co-operate when hunting."

"What do you mean, 'even'? Whenever the ARC had encountered them in the past, they _always_ co-operated," Becker asked, inquiringly.

"Really?" Matt said thoughtfully. "Then they must've come from earlier time periods than mine."

Before any of the others could ask about the other time periods in a greater detail, April Leonard – riding a wheelchair – made her appearance.

"When I asked Lester's assistant to bring me down, I didn't mean specifically _here_," she said crossly to no one in particular. "Hi again, Connor, and how's your new tortoise doing?"

Now _that_ caught everyone's attention and was an ice-breaker even if it wasn't intended as one?"

"What new tortoise?" Jess asked, curiously.

"A really ancient one that came here through a local time anomaly from the Triassic, Connor said," April explained helpfully. "It's about a meter long, actually still has some weak teeth in its jaws, and an almost dragon-like tail. Isn't it right, Connor? Oh, and Lester had sat on it without any ill effects to the reptile – I'm talking about the tortoise."

"That is correct!" Connor said almost brightly, "even the part about Mr. Lester sitting on it. Apparently, it had crawled in while he was taking care of the arboreal raptor and nobody had noticed it, until it was too late."

"Poor Lester," Emily sighed. "He really doesn't deserve this. Speaking of Lester and the undeserving – what is going to happen now? Earlier... it was explained to me that the ARC and Prospero™ were working together because of the minister's will. With Burton gone, what's going to happen now?"

"We're going to do our best to keep Prospero™ afloat," April replied, all traces of humour gone from her face now. "Hopefully, between Connor's scientific knowledge, and my managing skills, we'll be able to bluff Lester's superiors long enough for Lester to do whatever he's planning instead. Otherwise, we're all sunk, no matter what our initial alliances were." She paused and added. "I never dreamed that this was going to result in this."

"Yes, well," Matt for once was at loss for words. "It's not your fault."

April looked at Connor. "You didn't tell them, did you?"

"No," Connor admitted. "I just didn't think that it was the right time, what with them running into future predators once again and all."

"More carnivorous insects from the future? Great!" April said sarcastically.

"What is she talking about?" Becker said, much colder than before.

"She, ah, didn't see the video feed – she was too busy arguing with Lester about administrative matters," Connor said quickly. "April, uh, in the ARC's professional jargon, the future predators are mammals that possess, well, this sort of tooth." (He pulled out a tooth that Becker gave him as one of the trophies from the run-in at the zoo.) "They're definitely not insects, see?"

April took almost 10 minutes to stare are the tooth. "Creatures, creatures with such teeth are here? Oh, Dr. Burton, what have we done?"

"Almost destroyed the world?" Becker said in a neutral tone.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this! I assumed that Dr. Burton had figured out that by closing the other time anomalies, the animals that came through them would vanish or something. After all, it's all in the physics – only the time anomalies themselves allow these animals to exist here, right?"

"Remind me, where did Dr. Burton get his PhD, in what field of science?" Becker asked no one in particular.

"In physics, engineering and robotics," April replied. "Why?"

"Oh," Becker blinked. "Didn't see this one coming. April, uh, the time anomalies don't work that way at all: once the animals come through it, they stay here, unless they go through a time anomaly, whether an original one or not."

April stared. "Then why didn't you tell him that?" she asked the field team. "Dr. Burton was a good man, he would've understood."

There was a pause as everyone thought about it. "Well, don't look at us," Becker finally shrugged. "Jess was back at the ARC, helping Lester defend it from dinosaurs and what-not, and I was leading the charge to drag a very reluctant and angry T-Rex through the time anomaly through which it had initially come. Matt?"

"...I didn't think that would work," Matt confessed after a silence that clearly indicated that he had not thought about this at all. "I only had written files about him, that's all."

"I see," April said bitterly. "Did they say that Philip was a good man that didn't deserve to die? I, for one, had honestly believed that his life was going to get better: that horrible Johnson woman was gone, he was going to be knighted, and my ploy to keep him happy and confident was working-"

"Wait, Johnson? Christine Johnson?" Becker asked, quickly. "What about her?"

"Well, when I first came to work for Philip, he was constantly dominated by that horrible woman," April said flatly. "I mean, Philip was a great man, but he was a bit intimidated by women, especially women as arrogant as that Johnson. She was driving him into the ground and preventing his genius from flourishing. He needed some help. I thought it out, and discovered that there were only two people who could stand – more-or-less – to her: James Lester and Helen Cutter. Philip needed some female presence in his life, so I chose Helen Cutter. I created a CGI image of her, downloaded several motivational speeches, and introduced them to each other, as a matter of speaking. It was very successful, and – why are you looking at me like that?"

"You created a CGI version of Helen Cutter," Becker told her flatly, "and," he switched to Connor, "knew that."

"Yes," Connor nodded guiltily. "Me and Lester found out after we went and encountered Ethan."

"I thought that he told you already," added April.

"I wanted to, but after the future predators it seemed too much," Connor confessed.

"Couldn't you have used the tortoise incident to break the mood?"

"Well-"

"Stop," Emily wedged into April and Connor's discussion. "April, we're not angry at you being so good at deception, but if we're going to be friends, this has got to stop?"

"Are we going to be friends?" April replied, quietly. "It's not necessary-"

"Yes," Emily said flatly. "This whole situation happened in part because we all took sides, kept secrets from each other and so on. This has got to change."

"I see – I'll think about it," April said in a small voice before falling completely silent.

As silence stretched, Jess decided to break it by pointing upwards. "Hey, is it Rex?" she asked suddenly.

Everyone looked there, and sure enough, there was Rex, flying around, once more free from his container.

"Let's get him?" Jess suggested and the chase was on.

_End chapter 9_


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 10**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

The underground hideout of Alexandra, her minions and Ethan was not as uncomfortable as Ethan partially expected it to be: it was not mouldy, with tails of earthworms' sticking-out everywhere; nor was it barren, with nothing to sit on and nothing to eat, but it was comfortable enough... or so it was.

The re-appearance of two minions hurt and disgraced in the first fight with the ARC field team had changed that. Their new tale had rattled Alexandra – for the first time since their return to the twenty-first century.

"The Anathema are here? Here, and they brought allies?" Alexandra ground her teeth. "That's not good. When we came here tracking Vigdis' half-breed daughter, I did not expect to encounter _more_ faces from our past. Yes, Ethan?"

"Just wondering, how it is going to change our goal?" the anarchist turned time traveller shrugged. "Are we talking about more mutants?"

"Homunculi," Alexandra shook her head. "Your descendants have created them, or would create them, in test tubes to be their servants, but they escaped... apparently to this time to pursue their own agenda. And yes, Ethan, they may have never been friends of Vigdis or any other mutant leaders, but they're no friends of us and my mother either."

"I see," Ethan nodded calmly. "Well then, Alexandra, while bolo knives, colts and repeating rifles are cool, I'm going to use something more this century the next time we strike." With these words he reached into his backpack and pulled out, among other things, a Webley revolver and a pair of self-made bombs. "You dig it?"

Alexandra nodded, grinning slightly. You could say many things about Ethan, but one thing was for sure: he never got depressed or downhearted for too long.

\\\

"That was a merry chase, with 'merry' in a more old-fashioned usage of the word," Jess muttered, as Becker and Matt released the angrily chattering Rex into his containment unit, "and I seriously hope that we won't have to do that again in a while. Wonder what's gotten into him?"

"Me," April replied with a surprisingly humourless smile. "He doesn't like me, and he's correct. I should not be here. He's missing Maitland."

Jess took a good look at the other woman. Although she had initially been working for Prospero™ as well, she had never really encountered April at all – the two had been moving in different circles, after all. However, rumours about April _had_ reached Jess, and none of them had mentioned anything about the blonde's low self-esteem, and if there was anything that Jess did not like in other people, it was low self-esteem.

"Now stop it!" she said firmly. "Yes, we started off on a wrong foot, and what had happened with Abby will remain with us for a long time, but now it is time to mend bridges, start new ones, and – and recover," she added, remembering that she was looking down at April because the latter was in a wheelchair, her legs still bound in bandages and plaster of Paris. "Seriously, we don't hate you, and we can be friends, if we try."

"Friends?" April almost tasted the word, Jess could see it. "Friends... never really had any friends, never really had anybody. Never knew my father, and my mother wanted a son, so I was a disappointment as soon as I was born – never figured out why she kept me around all these years at all. Her... business associates followed suit. Then... she was gone, and I was free to live my own life – and I had no idea what I wanted to do. So... I ended up coming here and working at Prospero™ - working for Philip. I think _he_ was my first true friend," April twisted to face Jess directly. "I don't know you all that well, and I don't know how to make friends very well either. But I'm going to try."

"Thanks," Jess said weakly, realizing that befriending April will not be easy. "We're going to try too. Want to come over to my place tonight?"

"Is it wheelchair accessible?" April asked matter-of-factly.

"Okay, this is going to be trickier than I thought."

"Sorry."

\\\

"Let me get this straight," Abby said, semi-incredulously, "contrary to what Matt told me and the others, the future had more than just humans and mutant insects in it?"

"Well, obviously – you said before that the ARC had encountered plenty of creatures from the future," Helen nodded in reply.

"Not that – I'm talking about the ordinary people, the mutants, the future predators, your race," Abby nodded to Caroline, "and everyone else. It may or may not been a flourishing civilization, but to think that Connor and Philip had destroyed it, when `New Dawn's' time anomaly machine got activated is terrible!"

"Yes, we're living in a giant snakes-and-ladders game and me and mine just got a big lucky break," Caroline nodded, watching Abby warily. "So you're not going to hold it that I and mine aren't human?"

"No," Abby said firmly. "Whatever problems we're going to have aren't going to come from that, you can be sure of, and speaking of problems, any ideas what's causing mine?"

"Yes, actually," Helen nodded brightly. "You see, I got a plan."

_End chapter 10_


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 11**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

Even once he was put back, Rex did not calm down, but continued to angrily pace and flutter around his containment unit, chirping that he will be back. "You really do feel restless lately, don't you?" James Lester asked rhetorically, when the ARC field team had left the ARC's menagerie alone. "Sorry about your containment, then, but what can one do?"

Rex chirped some more, but Lester did not respond, thinking his own thoughts, remembering the past, for a change...

**May 2, 2009**

James Lester felt more turbulent than ever. On one hand, this was not the first time that Johnson had managed to get one on him, in their continuing game of one-upmanship, and it will not be the last... even if not counting the fact that Lester was going to get her back, as soon as he figured out how. No, Christine Johnson was not exactly important here, the ARC was.

The ARC... Lester realized with a start that he became genuinely fond of the Center, maybe even too fond. Then again, this was one of his longest posts outside of the ministry proper, so some rationalization wasn't amiss...yet where did it live him?

As Lester mused while opening the door, he failed to register anyone else's presence in his apartment, so the sight of Helen Cutter sitting on his sofa and looking at his family album (a single volume and a rather slim one at that) was quite a shocker.

"Get out," Lester said woodenly, aware that on his own he simply might not succeed.

"No," Helen shook her head. "Not yet. First you need to go over what information I have accumulated." She pointed to a large canvas bag lying next to James's living room table. "It's important."

"Get out, or I'll call Quinn, Becker and the others," Lester repeated while making no movement to look at Helen's information (whatever it was).

"No," Helen did not shift either. "I'm not leaving. Call whomever you want, but look over the information, if you do not want to look incompetent when the minister calls."

"Ah, you know about that?" Lester said, preparing for the next verbal assault.

"I learned," Helen replied instead, still looking through the album. "Now it's your turn to study. Start cracking."

Lester twitched. The domesticity of this scene was so absurd, that he instinctively reached into the canvas bag and pulled out the first folder, before beginning to read it. Life being what it was, it proved to be a very interesting reading material, and Lester became so engrossed in it, that he quite failed to notice the moment when Helen (hopefully) left the room to change her clothing, and the minister called on the phone, summoning him – and Dame Freisse – to the ARC shareholders' meeting.

\\\

**Several hours later**

"Ah, Lester, good day. Dame Freisse, nice to see you too," the minister said, his vocal tone switching from patronizing to more polite in the blink of an eye between the two sentences.

For his part, Lester was using every bit of political experience, knowledge and expertise he had ever accumulated so not to stare. It was still Helen Cutter who was standing next to him, but dressed in a business jacket and a long skirt, sensible though fashionable shoes and with make-up on her face, she looked regular, nothing like a time traveller Lester knew her to be.

Sadly, he did not have time to dwell on that, because the minister was at it again. "I declare this meeting of the ARC shareholders open. Good Dame, do you have any news?" he purposefully ignored Lester, but the civil servant was not surprised or overly worried: he has been on the out regularly with his boss before, and he was going to be in the future too.

"Actually yes, we do," the 'Dame' replied, even as Lester pulled out the folder with the processed materials that Helen gathered for him earlier. "Mr. Lester has some information that he wanted to share with you..."

And Lester did. He started with the fiasco of the late Oliver Leek – may he forever burn in Hell – who had been the latest of Johnson's protégés, and who behaved just as the rest of her protégés had: recklessly, stupidly, selfishly, etc... and he ended with today, when it became obvious that Johnson was most definitely _not_ grateful for taking over the ARC with the minister's blessings.

It was the last bit that probably made the minister's decision. "I see," he said in his usual manner that was supposed to imply that he was angry (not that his anger was worth much): "well, Lester, congratulations. You're back in."

"You're too kind," James muttered, and... let his companion slip away from his sight, even as the minister continued to wax poetic as he always did, and that, perhaps, was Lester's biggest mistake of the day.

\\\

"And that, perhaps, was my biggest mistake of the day," Lester confessed to Rex, who was listening rather attentively to Lester's rather rumbling narrative. "I mean yes, I didn't expect her to kill Johnson, just to beat 14 varieties of crap out of her or something like that – never to kill her. Johnson... she was not worth it. But I messed up, and that was the end. Page is dead, Quinn is gone, Lewis isn't coming back, Maitland's dead... the rest... only Becker and Temple remain, and they're moving on...where to? I know not."

Rex, who probably learned by now that you should not argue with mentally disturbed, started to chirp something in agreement, but suddenly stopped.

"Mr. Lester?" a tall woman, vaguely resembling Lorraine, but younger, looked into the menagerie. "Ah, there you are! I've been looking for you all over the ARC!"

"And who are you?" Lester did a titanic effort to regain even a semblance of either coherence or sanity, and he felt that he had rather pulled it off.

"Caroline sir, Caroline Steele. I breed dogs for the ARC. You hired me at the funeral of Mr. Hart, remember?"

"Yes," Lester glared, as he felt that his attempt at keeping the past and the present separate was beginning to fail. "What do you want now?"

"Sir, we need to go for a ride," Caroline said firmly. "Get some backup, if you want, but there is someone who needs to see you – at my place. Sir, are you okay?"

"No," Lester honestly confessed. "I think that I might be a bit drunk. Burton's gone. Burton was going to be a _Sir_ Philip, and now's he is gone. How fun is that?"

"Well, I guess I'll say hello to whatever you're drinking – it must've been very psychedelic – and take you home," Caroline said in a very matter of fact voice. "You too, you flying... lizard. Your mistress wants to see you."

Rex stiffened and chirped something. Lester too stiffened, as he realized something else:

"What are you talking about? Maitland's dead!"

"Want to bet?" Caroline smiled brightly, and Lester felt concerned for the first time ever:

"Where are we going?" he asked her again.

"Oh, you'll see," the smile of Caroline's was not so much mocking, as promising – really, really promising. "You shall so see..."

_End chapter 11_


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 12**

_Disclaimer: unless noted otherwise, all characters belong to Impossible Pictures™._

Outside, Lester noticed absent-mindedly, it was beginning to rain. It was more discomfiting to Rex than to him, since he actually was warm-blooded and could endure this sort of low temperature better than Rex.

(Incidentally, it should have snowed at this time of the year. But whether the global warming was at fault or some other cause, there was little to no snow this year, and when it fell, it was usually freezing rain or something similar instead.)

"So," Lester said as Caroline started her van, "how's work at the ARC? More importantly, how are you able to stay out of everyone's way?"

"Me and Ms. Wickers quickly came to an understanding," Caroline shrugged. "We had just enough in common to decide that I didn't need too much attention from the others, and things went on from there. Anything else?"

"Why am I going to your place?" Lester said calmly, "and why are you taking Rex with us?"

"Now those, sir, are the right sort of questions," Caroline said with much more respect than before. "However, trust me, they will be answered at my place."

Lester thought about it. "Very well, I agree – not only because the two of us never been really at odds before, but also because I need something like this – simply to convince myself that I'm not a figurehead that I could be."

"Pardon?" Caroline raised her eyebrow. "Are you having a midlife crisis?"

"I've been talking to a flying lizard when you came," Lester confessed. "I just may be. I know you probably liked Maitland the least out of all of us, but she's dead, can you believe it?"

"No," Caroline replied, "I honestly cannot."

"Oh," Lester replied and fell silent for the rest of the ride.

\\\

The rain did not abate for the rest of the ride, but Caroline's van, though not very fashionable nor sportive nor expansive-looking, was very resilient, enduring and weatherproof: despite the bad weather, they arrived at her place very quickly.

"So, what or who is I supposed to meet?" Lester started to inquire again, as the young woman and he came upstairs with Rex. "Not Oliver Leek, hopefully?"

"No!" Caroline said passionately. "Oliver Leek, I and mine were told, is dead and is probably in Hell. He's done and gone, Hallelujah!"

"Good!" Lester said as he opened the door – and came almost face to face with Abby Maitland _and_ Helen Cutter. "Oh dear."

\\\

A tense, uncomfortable silence would have fallowed, if Caroline did not release Rex at that moment. Immediately, the winged reptile flew across the room, landed upon Abby and began to almost kiss her, or to do something similar anyways.

"Rex!" Abby half-laughed half-wept from joy. "You're alive! April didn't hurt you!"

Rex cocked his head askance, took a better look at Abby's new facial decoration and began to chirp something reassuring and encouraging to her.

"Helen," Lester switched his attention to the older woman. "Quinn, before he left, swore that you were dead."

"I was," Helen nodded matter-of-factly. "But when Temple and Burton launched the good ship 'New Dawn' that particular moment in time got erased, permanently. Believe me when I say that you do not want to return to life that way at all. But on the plus side, my sanity got restored for good."

"Glad to hear that," Lester nodded evenly before he crossed the room, grabbed Helen by the collar and yelled into her face. "Why did you have to kill Johnson, Cutter? Why couldn't you just give her a beating? After you helped me get back the control of ARC I could've gotten you acquitted!"

"I wasn't interesting in anything like that back then," Helen shook her head ignoring the fact that the civil servant was almost pulling her off her feet into midair. "And still don't. What I am interested at the moment is fixing the mess that April Leonard had done."

"Speaking of messes," Caroline spoke up suddenly, "how are you feeling, Abigail? No nausea or anything?"

"Well, actually, yes. Some, regarding him," Abby pointed to the civil servant. "And no, Mr. Lester, that is April's fault: when we were fighting and before she flung me away, she zapped me with something, and now whenever I – usually – think of the ARC or the rest of the guys, I get sick, seriously though."

"Tell us," Caroline spoke, before Lester could. "Did you see April possess a medallion seemingly made out of obsidian glass or something similar?"

"Yes, yes she does," Lester said thoughtfully. "It was among the things that she had on her, when she was brought to our medical wing. She claimed that you were dead, and that she killed you. She was not happy about it, though, not at all."

"Good!" Abby exclaimed. "What of the others?"

"They're trying to bond with her," Lester confessed. "I admit that we have to – without her, Prospero™ is gone, and with Prospero™, the ARC is in trouble – the minister is on the warpath... unless you can find some way to blame Johnson for it?" he turned to Helen, partially sarcastic.

"Johnson had stolen that device alongside the Artefact and a number of others in the future, from its rightful owner. Once I took care of her, Burton and Leonard appropriated them instead and used some of them, at least, to jumpstart Burton's company," Helen replied evenly. "Unfortunately, their rightful owner is a – character that made me look social and humane on my worst days, and if we don't contact Leonard soon, she and whoever she's with, will be in a lot of trouble, trouble that makes her face look like nothing too terrible," she pointed to Abby.

Lester's face narrowed in thought. "Even if you are telling the truth, this is still near impossible," he confessed. "Parker took them out to see some Christmas-time movie, and I have no idea where they went."

"I think I know which one," Abby said quietly. "I can give directions and maybe we can catch them there. I may have to sit this one out, though, at least until we get April's half of the pair." She showed Lester her own obsidian circle. "Then, maybe, things will start to get resolved."

"Sounds like a plan," Lester said thoughtfully. "Let's go." As the others looked at him, he shrugged. "Well, I just don't want to sit this one out, you know?"

"Fair enough," Abby replied, and they left, Abby still holding Rex.

_End chapter 12_


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 13**

_Disclaimer: unless noted otherwise, all characters belong to Impossible Pictures™._

_Note: contains spoilers for the official series._

Contrary to Lester's assumptions, the ARC field team did _not_ leave the ARC building proper to watch a movie: aside from the entire 'Ethan and friends' situation, the weather wasn't looking particularly inviting to go outside, and so the field team decided to use the Center's own media room to watch something amusing and celebratory (holidays-wise). Therefore, they were able to watch Lester leave with Caroline (on their way to the media room) via Jess's control center without any problems... and did not do anything.

Becker, of course, voiced the main opinion: "Yes, Lester's married, but his wife's a piece of work, and if he decided to have a good looking lady friend to pass the time with, who're we to judge?"

"Well," Connor said in an uncertain voice, "that's Caroline. She used to work for this rather nasty character called Oliver Leek, who was going to take over the world – or at least England – with neutrally clamped future predators. But," he paused and shook his head, "I've run into her when I had to stay at his place because of Jack, and apparently, she works here – breeds dogs to the ARC, as Lester had hired her to do."

"Really? She looks rather glamorous to breed them," Jess said, sceptically.

"And yet she does – I've been over to her place few times," Connor said, musingly. "Come to think of it, the last time the two of us had run into each other also was dog-related: Lester's neighbour, Sir Alexander, bred dogs, and also fancied me – without Caroline to diffuse the situation I know not how that would've turned out..."

Everyone stared at him. "What?" Connor said, somewhat defensively. "What was I expected to say: hey, Abby, if I wasn't so into you, I could've been a count's boyfriend? No, thanks, pass."

"Heh," surprisingly it was April who broke the silence. "Life in the Center is just one big fest of bizarreness, isn't it?"

"Yes it is," Becker said firmly. "Surprised that it took you to figure out so long. Me, it took just a day or two after arriving at the post. Of course," he shook his head, "my past had its' own bits of bizarre, but that isn't the point here."

"Oh? What is the point?" Jess asked, cautiously: by now everyone generally _knew_ that when Becker grew maudlin, you should not push him, or he will push back, badly.

"What is the point? That ARC is bizarre and not always rational – that's my point," Becker told primly. "The faster you accept it, the quicker things will start to make sense here."

"Gee, thanks," April shifted her poise. "So, now that's out of the way, any revelations I should be making? Why, yes!" she straightened up and did her best to look Matt Anderson in the eye. "Since we're making revelations tonight, then let me tell you-"

Sadly, whatever April was going to say, remained unsaid, as a time anomaly manifested in the ARC, and through it stepped the painfully familiar Ethan Dumbrowski, followed by his partner and his minion.

"Surprise!" Ethan yelled cheerfully. "Bet none of you had seen _this_ coming!"

The next moment all Hell broke loose.

_End chapter 13_


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 14**

_Disclaimer: except for Alexandra and her minions, all of the characters belong to Impossible Pictures™._

_Note: contains spoilers for the official series._

As soon as they had arrived, the minions of Ethan and Alexandra began to run amok and to spread panic around the ARC.

Well, relatively speaking: the invasion of Helen's clone army was in the past, but not that far in the past, and so the ARC stuff had some experience in dealing with invaders. Not a lot, but some, that allowed them to leave in an orderly fashion to various places of safe retreat, as the horned minions, walking and climbing up the walls (they had claws on their hands and talons on their feet to accomplish that) roared and fired their repeating rifles and colts all over the place, almost like a bank heist gone irreparably weird.

The ARC field team, however, were used to weird. As soon as the invasion began, Jess grabbed Becker and they ran to left, Connor grabbed April and pulled to the right, and Matt and Emily... stayed where they were, staring at Alexandra and Ethan with at least some curiosity in their gaze.

"So," Emily broke the obviously tense and uncomfortable silence, "are you really Matt's sister? How'd that happen?"

"I thought that you would rather talk to him," Alexandra looked slightly surprised.

"No!" Emily and Ethan replied simultaneously before Matt fired his weapon at Alexandra. The energy blast hit Alexandra right in the chest...and was absorbed, for the lack of a better term.

"Come on, big brother, is that all you got?" she mocked Matt.

"You're not my sister!" Matt snarled as he fired several more times at Alexandra, before Emily knocked the weapon out of his hands:

"Stop it!" she whispered to her boyfriend. "I think you're actually making her stronger!"

"Precisely!" Alexandra grinned widely, before opening her mouth even wider and spitting out a genuine bolt of electricity at the two humans. "I'm not like you, big brother; I'm of a superior breed!"

"Sure you are," Emily said flatly, as she disentangled herself from Matt. "Where did you come from, then? And do you have any other siblings?"

"None that are related to him, I bet," Alexandra confessed, "and honestly, I'm not sure. Someone has once said that I have not half my mother's strength and less than half her wit – that certain someone is dead, I'm sure, but she did have a point: my mother is much wiser than I, and if she has any other children than me, she kept us separate from each other, for nothing good could come from sibling closure, I'm sure."

"Bull," Emily snapped. "My twin brother and I were quite close, and there's nothing wrong with either one of us."

"You have a twin?" Alexandra paused, curious despite herself. "How that works?"

"Well, it's like this," Emily started to explain. "Mother wasn't father's first wife – he was a widower, and had a son – my stepbrother Sheldon – in the Royal Navy. Father was quite proud of him, but I he was still young and probably was lonely, when he met mother. It was not exactly a whirlwind romance, but father was lonely, mother was lonely, they grew fond of each other and wed. In nine months – give or take one or two more – I and my twin brother were born."

"So? How that worked?" Alexandra repeated her question.

"Pretty well, actually," Emily grinned briefly. "My brother and I probably had our differences, but until father died we got well along. Once father died it all fell apart: Henry – my husband – became what this time is called a control freak – and my brother went to the colonies to seek his fortune-"

"The colonies?" Matt asked, since until now he and Emily never really talked about their families."

"They're called the States nowadays, mate," Ethan explained helpfully. "So are we going to fight or what?"

"There are any other options?" Matt said dryly.

"Well, the ladies look like they just might wander away and have tea somewhere else instead," Ethan shrugged.

"Why not," Alexandra suddenly agreed. "Son of Gideon, we only seek the daughter of Vigdis – why're you interfering? Your parents weren't friends!"

"Daughter of Vigdis – April is the daughter of Vigdis?" Matt repeated with a groan. "Crud! And we still need her!"

"For what?" Alexandra asked flatly.

"Well-"

\\\

"Here, April, we're safe," Connor exhaled as he showed April – still wheelchair-bound - into a place that vaguely resembled a broom closet. "Got to admit, I never saw this coming."

"Mm," April noncommittally agreed as she looked around. "Now what? I've never been in such a situation before."

"What, running for your life?"

"No," April shook her head, remembering the times when she had to escape her mother's rage or pay the price. "When someone – anyone, really, helped me out of a tight spot."

"Not even Philip?" Connor could not help but ask.

"No, not even him," April nodded. "I actually helped him, remember?"

"Hmm," Connor said thoughtfully, feeling a bit conflicted regarding the fact how even the great Philip Burton had had needed help. "Well-"

It was then that the door flung open and a pair of the dinosaur-like minions burst on the scene, growling.

"Eep!" Connor said bravely, instinctively falling back, right on top of April, who... shoved him out of the way as she half-rose – wincing from pain – from the wheelchair, grabbed the two invaders by their collars and smashed their heads together, before sinking down, clearly still in pain.

"What was that?" Connor asked, sounding genuinely confused.

"Never mind that," April sighed. "Connor, take me to their leaders. I'm through with running and skulking in the shadows, you know?"

"No, I don't," Connor shook his head.

"Fair enough. I still need to confront them," April sighed. "It is the only way this mess can be resolved."

\\\

"Where are we going, Becker?" Jess nervously asked as the two of them were quickly walking through some ARC corridor or another.

"To my quarters at the ARC," Becker said slowly. "I admit, I'd be happier going to the armoury, but odds are that either Ethan, his strange new friend or someone in their force had realized that as well, and I would rather not confront them unarmed, not without some firepower and with you in the way-"

"Now see here, Hilary Becker!" Jess snapped. "I can pull my weight, you know I can!"

"Now see here, Jessamyn Soleil Parker!" Becker snapped back, but it was then that Jess's cell phone rang. "Yes?" she spoke into it. "Oh, hello Mr. Lester! No, we are not at the movies! Ethan and his friends have invaded the ARC, and we need to stop him – Mr. Lester, are you still there?"

Dejected Jess closed her cell phone and looked at Becker. "That was Mr. Lester, and he was very upset about the new invasion of the ARC. Now what?"

Becker and Jess just looked at each other, but no answer was forthcoming from either of them.

_End chapter 14_


End file.
